Late 4th-early 3rd millennium BC. A layered white jasper cylinder seal with frieze of goats; accompanied by a museum-quality impression and typed and signed scholarly note issued by W.G. Lambert, Professor of Assyriology at the University of Birmingham, 1970-1993, which states: 'Cylinder Seal of White Veined Stone 31 x 27 mm. The design shows a frieze of three standing horned animals. They have been engraved by a mixture of gouging and drilling. This is a so-called Jemdet Nasr seal from Mesopotamia or south-west Iran. It is large and typical for its period. These animals were the less common types for farming at this time. Sheep and goats were owned by ordinary small farmers. Damage has removed the top of one of these animals, but what remains of the seal is in good condition. The drilling was just begun from the bottom, but, as often with Jemdet Nasr seals, it was not completed. To be dated c. 3000 B.C.' 41.79 grams, 31mm (1 1/4"). The Signo collection, the property of a West London businessman, formed in the late 1980s-early 1990s; item number W-568; academically researched and catalogued by the late Professor Lambert in the early 1990s; accompanied by an original typed and signed scholarly note by Professor Wilfrid George Lambert.